Bitchin’ Pool Party At the White House!

“Get out, kid. It’s not too late.”

EXCLUSIVE PICTURES of Lesley (daughter of Tom) Ridge’s wild, outta control graduation party at the White House! Which looks like it may have been attended by upwards of four people! (We don’t mean to judge too harshly — grad parties are just for your parents’ friends/bosses to give you cash and ask where you’re going to college, and we know that when we were that age, our more fun friends never woulda gotten past the security checkpoint, let alone into the East Wing)

Seriously, don’t let Laura Bush plan your graduation party. Though we’re sure she’ll cut you a pretty hefty check. Couple more photos (cause you know this shit’s getting deleted), after the jump.

READ MORE: White House, high school, laura bush, parties, pictures, teenagers, tom ridge

The 2008 Rumor Mill Is in Full Churn

The next presidential election is still an eternity away, but it’s already an extremely popular topic of conversation — perhaps because it’s far more interesting than the day-to-day machinations of Congress. We’ve been hearing interesting rumors about possible 2008 contenders — and we’re not just talking about the quixotic candidacy of Mike Gravel (although the folks we’re hearing about now aren’t exactly frontrunners either).

On the Democratic side, we hear that Bill Richardson (D-NM) is hosting several top political consultants at the Governor’s mansion this week, as part of a two-day retreat to “refine his national message” leading up to his 2008 presidential bid. Thoughts on how to deal with the mini-scandal over his exaggeration of his baseball prowess, plus that whole “inappropriate touching” thing, are most welcome.

And on the Republican side, we hear that Tom Ridge — former DHS Secretary and Pennsylvania Governor — is thinking about a possible White House run. If the rumors about him are true (and not satirical), the rigors of the campaign trail may not gel well with his obsessive-compulsive tendencies. A presidental run can involve lots of furry animal petting.

READ MORE: 2008, bill richardson, gossip, mike gravel, tom ridge, unverified rumors

Something Awful: Secrets — and Satire? — from Inside the White House

Yes, we know all about the purported White House gossip posted over at Something Awful (and picked up by Daily Kos, among other places). We’ve known about if for a while now, but we’ve been holding off on doing anything with it because we can’t tell how much of it is factual and how much of it is satirical or apocryphal. Here at Wonkette, we’re all about factual accuracy.

But since so many of you have emailed us about it, we’ll blog about it, just to stem the flow of messages. In case you’re not familiar with it, Something Awful is a comedic community website, with a huge and intensely loyal message board community. Last week, a community member called “Martin Random” posted a long thread of what he called “Secrets from Inside the White House.”

Excerpts from the lengthy thread, accompanied by our comments, appear after the jump.

READ MORE: White House, bush, condoleezza rice, crazy talk, department of homeland security, dhs, dick cheney, donald rumsfeld, george w. bush, gossip, homeland security, hunting accidents, immigration, jeff gannon, laura bush, martin random, rummy, tom ridge, top, unverified rumors

Daily Briefing: ‘It Just Disintegrated Our Capacity’

• Former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) says Congress rejected White House request for the authority to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens: “I can state categorically that the subject of warrantless wiretaps of American citizens never came up. I did not and never would have supported giving authority to the president for such wiretaps. I am also confident that the 98 senators who voted in favor of authorization of force against al Qaeda did not believe that they were also voting for warrantless domestic surveillance.” [WP, WP]
• Congress has turned on Bush. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.): “What you have seen is a Congress, which has been AWOL through intimidation or lack of unity, get off the sidelines and jump in with both feet.” [WP, LAT]
• Republican lawmakers “largely have themselves to blame for the muddled and haphazard finale of the Congressional session.” [NYT]
• House and Senate extend the Patriot Act for five weeks, pushing fight into the new year. [WP, NYT, LAT]
• Bush approves reduction of U.S. combat forces in Iraq; troop level could fall to 130,000. [WP, USAT]
• John Yoo, “a mere deputy assistant attorney general in the legal counsel office,” was the main author of controversial legal policies; viewed as an aggressive force among conservative legal scholars. Yoo: “If you’re being criticized for what you did and you believe that what you did was right, you shouldn’t take it lying down. You should go out and defend yourself.” [NYT]
• Michael Brown warned Tom Ridge in 2003 that the bureaucracy of the DHS would strangle FEMA’s effectiveness: “People became distracted from the mission, because we spent so much time and energy fighting for resources and working on reorganization. It just disintegrated our capacity.” [WP, WT]

READ MORE: Democrats, Republicans, SCOTUS, White House, congress, eavesdropping, fema, george w. bush, gulf coast, homeland security, iraq, john yoo, lindsey graham, michael brown, national security agency, patriot act, rick santorum, senate, tom daschle, tom ridge